Hungarian/Lesson 4

Compound nouns
As you might have noticed, the nouns mentioned before are all simple nouns, but there are compound nouns in Hungarian as well that can be as long as the compound words used in German. The resemblance is not a coincidence, Hungarian neologists of the early 19th century loan translated lots of German compound nouns. One of these is anyanyelv=anya ("mother")+nyelv ("language") which means "native language" ("Muttersprache" in German).

We can group the compound nouns based on the relation between the constituents:

Verbs and conjugations
In Hungarian there are only three tenses: past,present and future. In this section we will cover only the present tense.

Infinitive forms end in "-ni". However in the dictionaries verbs are in present indefinite singular 3rd person form.

"eszik" is an "ikes ige" (literally verb that ends in "ik", but this is actually a distinct grammatical category of verbs; there are also fake "ikes ige"; there aren't many of them, you just should treat them as irregular verbs; I don't suggest learning the suffixes alone)

Nearly every verb has an indefinite form, where the object (the item receiving the verb's action) of the verb is indefinite or where there is no object. (This is advanced stuff, you don't really need it at the beginner level, and using the indefinite conjugation instead of the definite or vice versa isn't a source of misunderstanding.) For an English example: I like fish. "I" is the subject, and "fish" is the object. Here we would use the indefinite Hungarian form of the verb, because the object is indefinite (you are saying you like fish in general, not any specific fish-- not for example the fish you are eating right now.) The verb "to go" cannot take an object (it is intransitive), so in Hungarian we always use the indefinite form.

Some verbs have definite and indefinite forms as well. Definite forms are always used with a definite object. In the phrase I like this fish, the verb acts on a definite object (this fish, not just a fish, not just fish in general), so we would use the Hungarian definite form. With the verbs that can use both forms, one must consider the object when conjugating.   Eszik has both definite and indefinite forms. The difference is not apparent in 1st singular, where both endings are -m.

Finally, note that the object of a verb needs to reflect that it is the object. The suffix -t is used to show that the words is in the accusative case. In the above examples, joghurt is the "dictionary" form of the word, but in the phrases is it an object (the yoghurt is being eaten), so it must have a -t suffix. The link vowel o in joghurtot is for vowel harmony.

Kis/kicsi, két/kettő
Hungarian has two words for small and two:

Kis, kicsi - small Két/kettő - two.

Kis usually comes before a noun and kicsi elsewhere, however this is a loose rule, but in compound words, only kis appears (for example, kisgyerek - toddler).

Két/kettő. Again, you should use két before something (e.g. két dollár), but you have to note something. Kettő is more formal, but you can use két in daily speech. The problem with két is only that it sounds similar to hét (seven). So, it is better to use kettő when talking about money!

Yes-no questions
Yes-no questions are formed exactly like normal statements in declarative mode (you may call them declarative questions), but -- and this is crucial-- they have a different intonation. Pitch starts lower and rises towards the end, ending with a sharp drop in tone on the final syllable.

In the above example, the stress is on Józsi. Joe went. Was it Joe (or someone else) who went? However, if I am not wondering about who, but instead want to know whether he went or not, I will ask: Elment Józsi a boltba?

Active/passive voice
In Hungarian passive voice isn't used except for a few simple cases. In complex sentences the usage of passive voice sounds strange, Hunglish. (Instead, the usual equivalent of an English passive is for the verb to be in 3rd person plural and for the subject to be an impersonal "they": Thomas was killed --> They killed Thomas =   Megölték Tamást. / Tamást megölték.

*: These are examples of the few exceptional cases when passive is used. These are made up with the auxiliary verb "van" + "-va/-ve" for the main verb.

1: In this case past tense is used in Hungarian.

Examples (not strictly relating to the grammar in this lesson)
(from the lyrics of a popular rock song (Kölyköd voltam, Edda művek) This example shows complex examples using all the grammar in the four previous lesson. (Conjugation, genitive (possessive "pronoun"), affixes)

Notice: Kölyök is considered a bit vulgar. It is mostly used when referring to animals.

Notice: várjatok is plural imperative form.

Guessing
Scooter is called roller in Hungarian.

The left one is nagyi the right one is nagy i. Capital i is called nagy i. (Notice the space/break.)

abc order
Éhes should be before Ember (long and short vowels are treated together)

Rövid should be after Rózsaszín (vowels with umlauts are considered separate letters)

Suffixes: könyvek, földek, körök (note the difference), sálak, kádak, lányok (note the difference), emberek, országok, városok, fogasok, hidak (irregular, í becomes i), narancsok, nyeremények, zsákok, kenyerek (irregular, é becomes e), rózsák, kutyák, csíkok (note that while the word is a front word, the suffix is a back suffix; the same with sípok ("fifes"), but szírek ("Syrians")), szőlők, tyúkok, nyarak (irregular, á becomes a)

Pronunciation
Using your knowledge on the Hungarian letters, try to pronounce (and memorise) the following Hungarian words, then listen to the audio file to check yourself:

New exercises
(TODO)

Vocabulary
(TODO)